A R C H I V E S O F M E T A L L U R G Y A N D M A T E R I A L S

Volume 58 2013 Issue 3

DOI: 10.2478/amm-2013-0114

R. WŁADYSIAK∗

COMPUTER CONTROL THE COOLING PROCESS IN PERMANENT MOLD CASTING OF Al-Si ALLOY

STEROWANIE KOMPUTEROWE PROCESEM CHŁODZENIA FORMY W ODLEWANIU KOKILOWYM SILUMINÓW

The paper presents the test results of a computerized control system the sequential cooling process of permanent mold
with use of water mist in the gravity die casting process.
It describes the process for preparing high-quality casts made of AlSi7Mg alloy that achieves enhanced mechanical
properties. A scheme of developed device and drivers for selected methods of sequence cooling for manufacturing of castings
made in permanent steel mold was presented here. Also the microstructure and mechanical properties of received aluminium
casts were described. It was shown that the use of a computer system to control the water mist cooling point of the mold
not only accelerates the cooling of the cast and the gravity die casting cycle shortens, but also it has a positive effect on the
microstructure and mechanical properties of castings made of unmodified AlSi7Mg alloy in a raw state.
Keywords: Innovative materials & casting technologies, cooling, water mist, Al-Si alloy

W pracy przedstawiono wyniki badań komputerowego systemu sterowania sekwencyjnym chłodzeniem kokili mgłą wod-
ną w odlewaniu grawitacyjnym. Opisano proces otrzymywania wysokojakościowych odlewów z siluminu AlSi7Mg o pod-
wyższonych właściwościach mechanicznych. Przedstawiono opracowane urządzenie, programy sterujące dla zadanych metod
wytwarzania odlewów kokilowych i sekwencji chłodzenia. Przedstawiono mikrostrukturę i własności mechaniczne otrzymanych
odlewów siluminowych. W pracy wykazano, że zastosowanie systemu komputerowego do sterowania chłodzeniem punktowego
mgłą wodną nie tylko przyśpiesza stygnięcie odlewu i skraca cykl odlewania kokilowego, ale również korzystnie wpływa na
mikrostrukturę i własności mechaniczne odlewów z niemodyfikowanego siluminu AlSi7Mg w stanie surowym.

1. Introduction microstructure and properties of the cast. The study analyzed

In the process of casting, solidification of the casting is
an essential step of the heat exchange that occurs between
the cast, the permanent mold and environment. It determines
the type of the resulting microstructure and the properties of
cast [1-3]. The most commonly used solidification factor that
increases the intensity of the conventional casting in metal
molds is to change the wall thickness and the outer surface of
the mold wall [3,4]. Further increase in the intensity of heat
exchange can be achieved by the use of a forced air or water
flow, spraying the outer surfaces or dipping the mold walls in
water. The pressure die casting use mainly forms with a closed
cooling system which task is to stabilize the temperature field
within the pressured mold [5,6]. From the studies on cooling
the solid surface with a mixture of free flowing stream of
water and air it is apparent that this type of cooling provides
a particularly high heat flux (Bi >>1) and favorable econom-
ic and regulatory aspects [2,7,8]. In turn the increase of the
cooling rate results in a higher aluminium alloy cast dendrit-
ic grain fineness and reduces eutectic interlamellar distance
[9-13]. The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of the
sequential cooling of the selected zones in the mold on the
∗
LODZ UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, DEPARTMENT OF MATERIALS ENGINEERING AND PRODUCTION SYSTEMS, ŁÓDŹ, POLAND
the heat transfer during cooling of the mold at the temperature
of crystallization and cooling of the casting in the solid state
and to examine possibilities to control the crystallization front
and the cast microstructure with a computer program. The aim
of this study was to analyze the impact of the cooling sequence
selected zones of mold on the microstructure and properties
of aluminium alloy casts. Study involved an analysis of the
heat transfer process during cooling the mold at a temperature
of crystallization and cooling of the casting in the solid state
and to explore the possibilities to control the crystallization
front and cast microstructure obtained by computer I control
the cooling of water mist in selected points of the mold.
2. Experimental
The study was conducted on a research station with us-
ing of the research mold from Fig. 1. Water mist illustrated
in Fig. 2 were produced in the device by dispensing 0.1 l/min
of water, and 150 l/min of air. Water droplets were produced
by using of spinning nozzle in the compressed air line, which
transported them to the cooled zone of mold.
978
Fig. 1. Section of mold and casting, zones and nozzles
Fig. 2. Generate mist: a – sprayed water with spinning nozzle, b – a
stream of water mist cooled directed to the mold surface, magn. x2,
registrations camera and fast camera
The metal mold was cooled by placing the cylindrical
nozzles perpendicularly to the surface of the mold. The tem-
perature of the mold and the casting was studied using K –
thermocouple placed in the casting and mold. For the analysis
of temperature zones with heat exchanges a thermal imaging
camera from company Optris PI was used.
Research mold was made of steel X38CrMoV5-1. In the
body of the mold there were installed symmetrically three
sections of cooling nozzles. Nozzles provided in such manner
that each section of the nozzle cooled one zone of the mold
and casting.
The nozzles were controlled using a computer system de-
veloped by a company Z-Tech. System software includes a set
of functions and procedures for monitoring and control of the
course of the water mist generating in a multi-circuit cooling
system.
Investigation of the effect of sequential cooling on the me-
chanical properties of Al-Si alloy castings were made with per-
forming static tensile test on the machine INSTRON 4485.The
sample of ”Rm ” was casted from technically alloy AlSi7Mg
unmodified. The mold was cooled by the methods (M1-M5)
presented in Table 1. M2-M4 methods differ used chilled pri-
ority zone, adequately: M2 – 1, M3 – 0 and M4 – 2.
3. Results
The first stage of the control program development was
to investigate the casting natural, non-cooled cooling process
of aluminium alloy in the mold and monitoring the cooling
process of the mold and the casting and also to examine the
relationship between the values of the temperature in different
parts of the mold. Tests were carried out using an infrared
camera and thermocouples. Fig. 3 shows the thermal images
recorded with temperature changes during pouring and cooling
of the mold. The analysis of recorded images shows that filling
of the mold starts heating up the top of the mold, middle and
bottom. After 1.5 seconds the temperature in the mold flattens
out and there is a heat flux received by the base of the mold.
The chill heats up, reaching the highest temperature in the
4 second. The research shows that the mold heats up to a
temperature in the range from 332 to 403◦ C.
On the basis of the derivative analysis dT/dτ of casting
temperature there was specified temperature range of the cast-
ing solidification and corresponding temperatures of studied
chill zones.
Fig. 3. Changing the temperature of mold preheated to 200◦ C during
pouring the aluminium alloy: a) 1 s, b) 2, 5 s, c) 4 s
The mold reached the highest temperature in zone 2 (Ta-
ble 1), which is due to its location in the upper part of the
mold – the runner. The chill zone 1 has heated to the tem-
perature of about 332◦ C (Table 1), The temperature of this
zone is the lowest among all of the investigated points as the
cross sectional in this area is the smallest of whole casting.
The temperatures of the chill were logged and used in the de-
velopment of control program, so that cooling would begin as
late as possible in the temperature range of the crystallization
process. The average time of the casting mold without the use
of cooling is approximately 550 seconds. At the temperature
of 200◦ C the chill reached after 200 seconds after the alloy
pouring.
In order to give the solidification priority to the most
important part of the cast the control program (M2) should
 979

start cooling zone no 1 as soon as possible after completion
of molten metal in the mold cavity and at the latest at the
beginning of aluminium alloy crystallization. In accordance
with the data presented in Table 1, the corresponding mold
temperature is 332◦ C. Then, after the aluminium alloy crys-
tallization, the program can start cooling the remaining zones
that no longer will supply the first area and accelerate the
cooling of the casting. The cooling process ends below 60◦ C
of the casting temperature.
Fig. 4 shows the algorithm of developed cooling program
of the mold. The algorithm starts with pouring the molten
metal in the mold. The program will first check the tempera-
ture condition of 332◦ C for thermocouple K1. If it has been
reached program activates the cooling in the zone 1 and goes
to the second condition. If the condition is not met, the pro-
gram also goes to the second condition. Analogically fulfilling
the conditions 3 and 4 turns on the pulsation of water with a
certain intensity.

TABLE 1
Temperature zones of the mold during casting crystallization

Zone 0 Zone 1 Zone 2 Zone 3

Temperature, ◦ C
Start of crystallization 380 332 397 585,68
End of crystallization 364 325 403 511

The first condition turns water valves and air cooling in

charge of Zone 2 when the temperature reaches 332◦ C. The
second condition consists of two parts connected by a con-
junction ”*”. It means that all the valves will be turned on
when the temperature decreases to the value of 332◦ C and six
seconds of the program operation time elapsed. Saved extra
time condition is necessary because of the pre-heating the
mold to a temperature 200 C. The time: 6 seconds is based on
the registration of the cooling system that allowed the mold
to reach a temperature of the crystallization start. During the
cooling process there was observed an intense temperature
decrease in the initial seconds, combined with the evaporation
of water. Later in the process the drops did not evaporate
as hard as before. It caused a formation of a thick layer of
water, which is a undesirable effect. To prevent this situation,
there was used pulse dosing of water in water mist generat-
ing system. Reducing the amount of water in the final stage
of cooling process requires an additional condition to turn on
Fig. 4. The algorithm of developed conditional mold cooling control
pulsations after reaching the temperature of 200◦ C and another program
one under 100◦ C. The optimal value pulsation in this case, the
mold was 60% and 40% in the last period of cooling process.
Endpoint of current version of the program was shown in Ta- The last condition turns off the cooling after reaching
ble 2. The program cools down the mold by drying it with an the point K3 temperature below 60◦ C. The computer program
air flow. Consequently, it further reduces the casting defects checks repeatedly for the occurrence of the control conditions
and improves the safety of the work on casting stations. The and if any of them is not met, it starts a new iteration of the
program reduced the casting time to 61 seconds. control program.

TABLE 2
Conditional program

No. Condition Action

1. (K1>332) Z3=10;Z4=10;Z11=10;Z12=10
Z1=10;Z2=10;Z3=10;Z4=10;Z5=10;Z6=10;
2. (K1<332)*(TIME>6)
Z9=10;Z10=10;Z11=10;Z12=10;Z13=10;Z14=10
Z1=6;Z2=6;Z3=6;Z4=6;Z5=6;Z6=6;
3. (K1<200)*( TIME >6)
Z9=10;Z10=10;Z11=10;Z12=10;Z13=10;Z14=10
Z1=4;Z2=4;Z3=4;Z4=4;Z5=4;Z6=4;
4. (K1<100)*( TIME >6)
Z9=10;Z10=10;Z11=10;Z12=10;Z13=10;Z14=10
Z1=0;Z2=0;Z3=0;Z4=0;Z5=0;Z6=0;
5. (K3<60)
Z9=0;Z10=0;Z11=0;Z12=0;Z13=0;Z14=0
980
Fig. 5 shows a microstructure of the casting obtained with
use of cooling sequence described in the method 3 and one
obtained with the water mist cooling multipoint conditioned
program.
Fig. 5. Microstructure of AlSi7Mg cast obtained in the mold preheat-
ed to 200◦ C chilled with water mist containing 0.1 l/min of water
and 150 l/min of air; phase α, eutectic α + β
The microstructure of tested cast consists preeutectical-
ly crystallized α phase dendrites and eutectic lamellar α + β.
There is a high homogeneity and fineness of the microstructure
obtained which characterized by a small branching dendrites
(I-II level) preeutectic phase of α and short circuit in the eu-
tectic precipitates.
The studies of mechanical properties are presented in
Fig. 6. Results show that the use of water mist cooling sys-
tem on the mold significantly increases the tensile strength
Rm , compared to non-cooled castings. The highest average
value of Rm = 210 MPa was achieved for castings chilled
by M3 method, i.e. with the priority put on the lower part
of the mold and the casting. Moreover, the value of other
properties that were tested had the following values: R p0,2 =
115 MPa, A5 = 2.7% and HB = 78. It’s probably caused by a
decrease of shrinkage and porosity defects in the casting and
the fine-grained microstructure results from a larger overcool-
ing of the liquid alloy during solidification of the casting.
Fig. 6. Influence of cooling method on the tensile strength Rm of
casts
The research shows that sequential mold cooling water
mist implemented by computer program control system con-
ditional coupled with continuous measurement temperature
can effectively influence the structure of the cast, reduce the
This article was first presented at the VI International Conference ”DEVELOPMENT TRENDS IN MECHANIZATION
OF FOUNDRY PROCESSES”, Inwałd, 5-7.09.2013
Received: 20 January 2013.
amounts of defects and increase the mechanical properties of
the casting.
4. Conclusions
The research presented in the paper leads to the following
conclusions:
• condition-based program coupled with the measurement
of mold temperature allows effective control of mold cool-
ing process using an open multipoint water mist cooling
system,
• sequential mold cooling water spray increases the ho-
mogeneity of the microstructure and increases by about
20-25% the mechanical properties of castings made of
silumin AlSi7Mg,
• computer-controlled water mist cooling system ensures to
limit the amount of water present in the cooling process
to the current evaporation capacity of the mold.
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